When Deadpool Met The Punisher
by Emir Skalonja
Summary: Nick Fury recounts his decision back in the day when he recruited Deadpool and The Punisher to retrieve a mutagen off of a Japanese vessel that had been overtaken by Somali pirates. When the duo gets to the ship, they find all hell's broken loose.


**Excerpt from "Man of Mystery: The Biography of Nick Fury"**

** CHAPTER FOUR**

_**When Deadpool Met The Punisher**_

Somalia, or the code name I coined, Operation Double Trouble, was a tricky situation and an overall a powder keg with a fuse already lit and fast on its way to blowing the world up to hell and back. What we had was a group of Somalian pirates hijacking foreign vessels and holding hostages for ransom. It was the usual stuff. Whatever country was targeted, that country would send its forces to the rescue. I'm sure our Navy Seals were always there to help out.

But when the Somali pirates hijacked that Tokyo 2100 cruiser transporting Substance X-13, all hell broke loose. Now rogue Somali's had their hands on a highly potent substance that made anyone who came into contact with it, into a violent, raging maniac, overcome with thirst for blood.

What were they planning on doing with it? Who the hell knows. I sure wasn't going to sit on my ass to find out. They're pirates; they have hostages, they'll get the money and upgrade their arsenal. They get their hands on a highly contagious toxin, now it's a whole different story.

But who the hell do you assign to a mission like this? Iron Man? Captain America? Neither. You can't send guys like that to meddle their hands into what could very likely escalate into an international conflict. Thor was god knows where, you know how he is, always shows up at the right moment, you know, for a dramatic effect.

You can't send any of these guys on a mission where heavy casualties could be involved. They can't have body counts attributed to their names. You need someone who is already unstable, someone who doesn't mind the killing. Three guys came to mind: Deadpool, The Punisher and Wolverine. No one could reach Wolverine, as he was in Canada for some reasons he would not disclose. Well anyways, I had my first two choices.

Lunatic and an outcast. What a combination. These are the guys you can send into a situation that requires you to get your hands. That's if you pay them the right sum.

Both have itchy trigger fingers...well Wade more so than Frank. Again, Wade is mentally unstable. This is one among one hundred and sixteen reasons why he was never able to be a permanent member of shield.

**Agent Name: Wade W. Wilson aka Deadpool**

** Mission: Tokyo 2100**

** Date of Debriefing: 10/10/10**

There I am, finally about to score with a super hot babe and my phone rings. Usually I don't answer my phone around hot super babes unless it's another super hot babe trying to call me but for some reason I answered it.

Fury calls me and he starts talking about some pirates, a ship, something making people into zombies...OK jack, who the hell cares. I'm not really listening but then he says he's gonna pay me money and then I start to listen. He says there's gonna be explosions and stuff and now I don't even notice the super hot babe sitting on my couch.

I put on my Deadpool suit. They're sending Deadpool in, not Wade. What guy name Wade fights pirates on a ship and stealing their mutagen thingy?

I get to the S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters. Fury is there yapping about something blah blah blah, who the hell cares. And then there' this Frank Castle guy, but they call him The Punisher. I heard about this guy. Seen him a few times too, but never was required to work with him. Deadpool doesn't respond well to "required."

"I work alone!" I say and point my finger at Fury! Deadpool style baby. "You never said anything about this tough guy here!" Punisher looks at me like he wants to blow my brains out. I'd like to see him try.

"You're being paid to do this job, and that's the way it is. You go in together, you get together." Fury says to me. I'd do the impression of Fury for you but papers can't talk. And why are they having me write this mission recap thingy on paper? It's 2012.

"Let's just get this over with." Punisher says to Fury. "I'm not babysittin' for you Nick. That's extra."

The comment ticks me off, so I jump to the man with the stupid skull on his chest, my swords drawn and at his throat. As I do that, he's gotta a .45 right under my chin.

"I doubt they wanna clean up your brains from that wall behind you." He says to me. The guy is super cool, calm, calculated or whatever. I dig that. I sheath my swords and let Fury get on with his briefing.

Next thing I know, we are on S.H.I.E.L.D plane (that abbreviation annoys me with all the freakin' dots. Fury says the cover of the night is good to drop on the ship. The guy's so annoying. I'm actually writing a book on how annoying Fury is.

We get to the ship and we are flying down. Some geeky tech guy gave us some thingy to make us undetectable while we're dropping down. We drop down with no problems and we are on the deck.

So what we gotta do is find whoever is in charge of the pirates, kill him or "apprehend" him like Fury says (I like kill, personally), find the container with the toxin and call for extraction. But the main objective is the container, Fury said.

As soon as we are on the deck, Punisher starts barking his orders at me.

"Let's split up. The container is somewhere in the lower decks. Storage deck, as per Fury." He says. "I'll secure the cargo, you take care of the pirates. Quietly if possible. Meet up here in thirty."

Ha quietly. This guy seriously doesn't know me. I don't do things quietly. I'm off. Got my swords drawn and am hugging the corner of the wall by the stairs leading up to the control room.

It's weird at first; I thought the place would be crawling with these pirates. I round the corner and run up the first flight of stairs. There are two sets of doors: one in front of me and one to the left. For whatever reason I pick the one on my right.

I open the door slowly and this thing jumps out at me, flailing its arms and trying to bite my face off. I hold its arms to see that the thing was actually one of the pirates. WAS one of the pirates. Now the thing that was latching onto me looks like it's face was burned with acid or something, skin all over it's body hanging loose off it's bones.

I kick it back and cut its head off with my sword crossed like a par of scissors.

"Hey tough guy?" I say over the comm set, courtesy of the geeky tech guy.

"Yeah?" Punisher responds in his tough guy, low growl.

"I think we might be a little late. I think the toxin's already on the loose."

"I have the same problem down here." He says and I here a gun shot from his end. The line goes dead.

I walk through the door and get into a corridor, doors on each side. As soon as I take a step four of these things come running towards me, some of them already missin' limbs.

I sheathe my swords and take out my uzis to mow these bastards down. I open fire on them and bullets shred them up like paper but they're not stopping. They're within an arm's reach of me, so I jump and prop myself between the walls as they run between my legs. IDIOTS. I jump down and open fire again, and this time aim a little higher and bullets rip through their brains. This seems to stop then

The corridor becomes all gross and stuff. There are brains, blood and pieces of their skin everywhere. Gross.

I run down the corridor and run into another one of these things, I guess I could call them zombies, and put a bullet in his head. He drops and I continue down and make a left through the last door.

Bingo! Control room. But there's a guy here hiding behind an overturned sofa. He points his gun and me. It's an AK-47. Doesn't take me long to figure he's one of the idiot pirates.

"Don't come closer," he says. "I'll shoot."

"Listen dumbass, you and your buddies made this mess, so they sent me and another guy I really don't want to be with, to clean this up so if you don't mind, put the gun away and tell me where your head honcho is so we can all move on." I wait for his answer and can see that he's scared out of his mind.

I take a step forward and he squeezes the trigger. Bullets start zipping past me and they ricochet off the metal walls. I manage to dodge them but I'm not playing this game. I teleport right behind him and point my guns into his back. I allow him to turn.

He looks at me all wide eyed like so I give him another chance. "That was cute. You can't really shoot that thing, so before you hurt yourself, why don't you tell me where the head dumbass is?" He doesn't hesitate and before he can squeeze the trigger again, I put seven or eight bullets in his chest and send him flying over the sofa.

I holster my guns and look at the control panel. I figure I'd stop the ship from going wherever the hell it was going. But I'm looking at this thing and there are seventy six thousand kazillion buttons, levers and whatever else was there. Eenie meenie minee moe and I pick one that sort of looks like an important one, pull it all the way back and the ship stops in an instant, throwing me against the board and back.

"Mr. Punisher, sir?" I call the tough guy. "I don't think the leader of this pack is up here. And it looks like all the crew and pirates have been turned into zombies."

"That's because he's probably down here, guarding the container." The comm line crackles and goes dead. So I figure he'd probably need my help. I get out of the control room and make my way back up the corridor.

I take the stairwell going down and see signs for the storage deck and cargo. Bingo. But nothing can go easy. I hear the zombies growl as they make their way up the stairs. I take out my guns again and start blastin' away. Not even sure how many there were but I mowed them down one after the other and they just kept piling up on top of each other. I run along the wall, not step into the stew of brains and bones.

I finally make it down to the storage deck and open the door. I get into another corridor and I can hear the gun fire to my left. I start running in that direction when a dumbass behind me opens fire from his AK-47. None of these dummies can shoot and the bullets ricochet one catches me in the shoulder. Son of a-...It'll heal, I tell myself as I take a shot at him while still running and shred him to pieces.

And as I look back to make sure he's dead, I slam right into a zombie and drop my guns. Next thing I know he's on top of me trying to gnaw at my face. He got pretty damn close and starts to vomit. All that nastiness goes into my face. Now if I was a superhero without a costume...well yeah, this could be a lot worse than it already is. The stench is unbearable. I get my knees to his chest and push the thing off. It somersaults behind me. I get up, draw my swords and cut its head of.

I pick up my guns and Punisher runs out of nowhere and pushes me.

"Lets go! The whole ship is rigged to blow." He says and runs ahead of me, carrying a crate in one hand and a shotgun in the other. He's bleeding from his neck.

"Fury, we need extraction, pronto." I scream as self destruct sequence kicks in and red emergency lights start flashing. I run after the tough guy.

We're both on the upper deck. We can't see or hear our ride.

T MINUS TWO MINUTES TO SELF DESTRUCTION. ALL PERSONEL EVACUATE.

The siren keeps blaring.

"Fury, we got the package." Punisher says, a bit too calm for my taste. A group a zombies comes spewing onto the main deck from god knows where. They start running in our direction. I get my guns ready and take aim. I fire and they start tripping over each other as they fall down from the gun fire.

Punisher fires of a couple of shots from his shotgun. There are too many of them. I cover him as I draw my sword and start slashing these gross things and cutting their heads. The Punisher calls for help again.

For a moment we thought all was lost and that we were double crossed by the S.H.I.E.L.D. But right then and there a chopper comes out of the thick clouds and almost touches deck. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the chopper open fire on the undead thingys and they fall like flies all around me.

One of them takes the crate from Punisher and they hoist him up. Not wasting any more among the rotten corpses, I run across the deck and jump on the helicopter. Idiots already started to ascend so when I jumped I almost missed the helicopter and grabbed onto it with just two fingers. I dangled in the air like that and I was sure I was going too drop and get eaten by those nasty ghouls.

Out of all people, Punisher grabs me and pulls me up.

"And I thought you didn't like me." I say trying to catch my breath. The man just half grins.

About ten seconds later, the ship explodes and the whole thing goes up in flames.

We fly to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ and that's that. Fury paid us and told us to keep our mouths shut about the whole thing.

THE END (Fury sucks)

** Agent Name: Frank Castle aka The Punisher**

** Mission: Tokyo 2100**

** Date of Debriefing: 10/10/10**

The mission, Fury says, is on the need to know basis. He says we need to go in and get out. Get the container containing the toxin, deal with the leader of the pirates. That's the mission.

I'm standing in the S.H.I.E.L.D. hangar, waiting, as the rain beats violently outside.

Toward me walks a man in red jumpsuit, armed to the teeth. He has two other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with him. I've head of this guy. Calls himself Deadpool. Lunatic.

We get to talking, mainly complaints from this Deadpool character about how he works alone. I make a comment to Nick Fury how I charge extra for babysitting and this red maniac has his swords drawn at me, wanting to cut my head off. He's not as careful as he should and notices my gun against his chin all too late.

"I doubt they wanna clean up your brains from that wall behind you." I say to him. He retreats. Idiot.

All pleasantries are exchanged. We are dropping out of the airplane with our chutes fluttering trough the night air. We drop on the desolate deck, which is odd to me since I've expected roving guards at every corner.

"Wahoooo." Deadpool yells a dozen or so feet above my head and then drops and rolls, military style.

"You're giving us away!" I scold him like an immature little child that he is.

"Relax tough guy."

I put it past me. I have to work with him for the next thirty minutes and then I never have to see him again. Hopefully.

I then proceed to give him instructions as too what we should do. He runs off and I don't even think he heard half of it. No matter.

I go toward the lower decks where the container is said to be located. I take out my .45 and put a silencer on it. A pump action shotgun on my back, and a sawed off on my hip. Both for good measure.

I read the signs leading to storage deck. It's too quiet.

I open the door to the stairwell very carefully. It creaks open nonetheless and I fear I've alerted our enemies, because all this smells like an ambush.

I make my way down the first set of stairs and turn left where the sign to the cargo hold points. I lift my gun up, aim and proceed with caution. After the first few steps I take, I hear a groan come from around the corner. I stop.

A man...a thing, shuffles into my view from around that same corner and slowly lifts its head up in my direction. Well whatever it was, it used to human. That, if was no more. Its missing its lower jaw and one of its eyes. The skin on its face looks like it's been rotting for ages. There are trails of blood from every single orifice.

It looks at me for a moment and I can see it getting more tense. It lunges at me in a blink of an eye. I shoot it in the chest and legs but it only seems to slow it down. It gets to within an arm's reach of me and before it can grab me, I kick the monstrosity in the chest and I watch it fly back.

Not even a second goes by and it's up again, coming after me even angrier this time. I shoot it in the head and the thing drops down dead. Head shots seem to stop them...permanently.

I make my way around the corner and into another corridor. I make my way down, firmly gripping my. 45 and I'm ready for the next thing to jump out at me. I think back to the thing I killed and realize it was one of the members of the ill fated Japanese crew. So where are the Somalian pirates?

I thought ahead of the situation and from the room to my right come out two men, just as disfigured as the man I encountered before and they are running at me. AK-47's are strapped to their backs. Somalian pirates. Whatever happened here, it looks like the virus already was set loose.

I shoot them both in the head. They drop like sacks of dirt and I take one of their weapons. Could come in handy.

I come to the end of the corridor and it splits left and right, but I see no sign. To my right I see a wave of these undead things coming my way. They are stumbling over each other. I holster my .45 and open fire with the AK-47 and start mowing them down. A pile of corpses starts to appear before my eyes as I empty the magazine and hear the empty clicks.

I am careless; I don't see another one of these things sneak up on me from behind. It grabs me by me shoulders and leans in to bite. It's teeth dig into my shoulder of my kevlar and the thing tears off some of the fabric. Luckily, no wound. I elbow the thing in the face and kick it the chest to buy myself some time.

I throw away the AK-47 and unholster my sawed off from my thigh. I shoot the thing in the head and watch the bullet take it clean off its shoulders.

Before I can move down the left corridor, Deadpool calls to me over the comm set and says that the pirate leader is not in the upper levels and that the toxin has already ravaged the crew along with most of the pirates and turned them into zombie.

"That's because he's probably down here, guarding the container." I say and hear a single guns shot and now I feel burning pain in my left shoulder. I turn and see one of the pirates. This one is alive and well.

I take cover as he fires his clip empty. He's scared. I hear him screen not even a second later and peek from my cover to see him get eaten by a swarm of these zombies.

I guess they work out to my advantage. For now, that is.

I run down the corridor and finally reach the cargo hold. The pain in my shoulder starts to get to me. It wasn't a clean shot. The bullet is still in my shoulder. I do my best to forget the pain for the moment and enter the cargo hold.

Right in front of me is one of the pirates. He's holding a handgun, 9mm, and in the other arms, a square case that I assume is the toxin, or whatever is left of it. He's the leader. I know it. I see it in his eyes.

He points the gun at me, I point my sawed off at him. I'm at a disadvantage here. The blast radius of my weapon is greater than his but I am to far away from him and it is not an accurate shot if I decide to take one. I manage to close some distance between us but he yells at me in Arabic, and then in asks me if I'm American. He asks this in English.

I don't respond.

"You deaf?" He screams.

I still don't respond. I try to take another step or two towards him.

"I saw that!" He says. "No more walking. Now I have this virus, and now you. You hostage. Drop your gun!"

"It looks like things are a bit out of control for you. You lost your crew." I finally say.

"They not worthy of this great weapon. I test it them, like dogs they are. Now I get money for this, or maybe I use some of it, say, in America, or Europe. Huh? You understand?"

"I'd like to see you get out of here alive." I say in return. The imbecile does not understand the situation he is in.

"I survive lot worse before. You know Mogadishu? Bad place my friend. You Americans come long time ago and mess everything up."

Just another opportunist taking his anger out on America, blaming the country for all his problems.

"I do anything to survive." He continues. His hand is shaking and I see that he can't keep a steady aim on me. "I do anything to survive." He repeats.

As we all do. I'm close enough. I take a shot.

The bullet hits the left side of his head, takes a good chunk of it off and splatter the wall behind him. He drops the container. All of a sudden, the ship seems to come to a stop and it lunges me forward. I trip over the dead pirate and hit my head off the wall.

The self destruct sequence sounds off on the speakers throughout the ship. Can anything else happen on this mission?

I don't hesitate another moment; I grab the container and run out through the corridors toward the stairwell I came from.

As I approach the stairwell, I can here gunshots from that corridor. The container is getting heavy as my arm bleeds. With my good arm, I holster my sawed off and take the pump action shotgun from my back holster.

I raise it up as I round the corner, but to my relief, or annoyance, I run into Deadpool. It looks like he killed one of the live pirates as well as a zombie.

Before he can open his mouth, I push him forward and tell him that the ship is going to blow. To my surprise, the man listens to my command and follows me to the upper deck. On the way, we both radio in for extraction but all we hear is static from the other end of the line.

We get to the upper deck. Rain. The siren that screams into the night gives me a raging headache. But then again, it could be from the blood loss.

Behind us, from every single door, zombies start spewing onto the deck. Deadpool takes initiative and starts blasting off at the undead group as I look out for our ride. I take a couple of shots and put two of these ghouls out of their misery.

Deadpool takes out his swords and dances as he deals deathly blows to our foes. I'll say that what he lacks in brains, he definitely makes up in skill.

At that moment, our ride comes in. The S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopter comes out of the thick clouds and drops down close to the deck. I hand the container before two agents bring me up on board. I watch Deadpool as he dismembers scores of zombies in gruesome, theatrical ways.

He decides to run towards the chopper at the very last minute and almost misses it. I grab him with my good arm and pull him inside.

He says he didn't think I liked him. He's funny this one. I grin through the pain, and then the explosion on the ship shakes the chopper, almost crashing us down into the ocean.

It would suck that if after everything, we die by drowning. Luckily, we make it to the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier.

Whatever happens at this point, someone will have a lot of explaining to do. Mounds of paperwork too.

Politics.

Who gets to keep the toxin?

Who cares, we were just two expendable guys no one would have missed.


End file.
